Mardi Gras, aka Shrove Tuesday, aka Fat Tuesday, is happening today all over the Christian world, but no city is more associated with this last hurrah before the abstemious season of Lent than New Orleans. Though Rio could give the Big Easy a colorful run for its money. Venice too. And Trinidad. Sydney, as well. So, you see, there are plenty of other cities--and an island--that know how to throw a party during Carnival season.
I am not here to argue that the Crescent City doesn’t deserve that top spot, but rather to go all in with New Orleans as inspiration for marking the day before Ash Wednesday. Since it’s too late to decorate our houses as parade floats, as the Big Easy creatively did this year in place of their joyous Mardi Gras parades that have been banned this, we’ll have to settle for something more realistic to do right now, this late in the day, and I have an idea. Rest assured, if you’re prone to worry even on a day of anything-goes fun, it is no less joyous, creative, and ritualistic. I am talking about cocktails.
New Orleans is a drinking town like nowhere else in the States, and not just in the way you might initially think--of tourists loudly stumbling around with neon-colored slushie drinks in super-size, single-use plastic glasses getting hammered. That for sure is part of the drinking culture of New Orleans and has been for over a century, but New Orleans is also the spiritual home of one of America’s greatest culinary contributions to the world: the Cocktail.
The Cocktail didn’t spring forth like Venus from the Mississippi (the Hudson River can claim that paternity), but its muddy waters did nurture the Cocktail in New Orleans, a French colonial city that has known for a long time how to have a good time, independent of Protestant pressure to rein it in.
Let’s us too be unbridled in our celebrations tonight, or as much as we can be while stuck at home without a throng of merrymakers around us, and knock back one or two or three mixed that were birthed in New Orleans in the 1800s, with spirits that are fittingly Gallic: brandy and absinthe. Here are three classic recipes.
Let the good drinks pour!
Sazerac
Absinthe, to rinse
2 oz Cognac or Rye (or a combination; rye is the standard)
¼ oz Simple syrup
4 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Garnish: Lemon peel
--
Pour a small amount of absinthe into a rocks glass. Fill the glass with ice and swirl the ice around to chill the glass and to coat it with absinthe. Set aside. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the garnish, to a mixing glass and fill with ice. Stir until combined and chilled (about 30 seconds). Dump ice out of the rocks glass, and strain the drink into the glass. Express the lemon peel onto the top of the drink and discard.
Absinthe Frappé
1½ oz Absinthe
½ oz Simple syrup
2 oz Soda water, chilled
---
Add the absinthe and simple syrup to a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice and shake until chilled. Add soda water to the shaker. Strain into a rocks glass, Collins glass, or a julep cup that is 3/4-filled with crushed ice. Top with more crushed ice if necessary.
Brandy Crusta
2 oz Cognac
½ oz Lemon juice, fresh
½ oz Orange liqueur (e.g., curaçao, triple sec, Cointreau, Grand Marnier)
¼ oz Maraschino liqueur
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Garnish: Sugar + lemon juice for rim of glass and Lemon peel spiral
--
Wet the rim of a small wine glass, preferably chilled, with lemon juice and then dip the moistened rim into sugar. Set aside the sugar-rimmed wine glass, preferably in the freezer. Add the remaining ingredients, except the garnish, to a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice and shake until chilled. Strain into the wine glass and garnish with lemon peel spiral.